


Girl Stuff

by Tanzenlicht



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crossdressing, Gen, Gender Identity, Makeup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanzenlicht/pseuds/Tanzenlicht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/73050.html?thread=25843546</p>
<p>Can I get a gender-confused, fallen!Castiel? He’s in a male vessel, but he’s never actually been male or female, so he doesn’t identify with either. Just Cas trying out different things associated with being male and female, trying to find where he fits. Shaving, wearing makeup, cross-dressing, whatever you can think of, just show Cas’s frustration/confusion at not feeling like he fits into either gender role.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl Stuff

**Author's Note:**

> M is my typo killer, long may she reign.

Castiel is stark naked and frowning at himself in the mirror when Sam walks into the bathroom. The moment of startled silence goes on a little longer than Sam thinks is strictly appropriate and then he spins on his heel.

“Jeez Cas, lock the door when you’re…checking yourself out in the mirror…” Sam says, though not too harshly. Castiel is still getting used to the whole human thing. It can’t be an easy transition and he’s been dealing with it mostly on his own. Castiel is surprisingly skilled at requesting help without saying anything just by being awkward. In public Castiel manages to act fairly normally but when he’s home with just Sam and Dean to see him he seems to test the boundaries of behavior.

Dean ignores him for the most part with occasional angry snapping he claims is unrelated to his lingering feelings of betrayal. So when Castiel misses a button, or stares for uncomfortably long periods of time in slightly odd directions it’s Sam who offers him hints and tips on being a person most of the time. Offering a full course is something that seems pretty presumptuous and Sam’s not sure he’s qualified.

“Sam?”

Castiel says it quietly enough that Sam could probably ignore it without being too rude. Ignoring the naked guy you just barged in on is probably proper etiquette. Sam stops anyway.

“What does being a man feel like?”

“Uh.” Sam had not been expecting that. “Well, I mean…don’t you know? You’ve been one for a while now.”

“I am…I was neither male nor female in my true form. Even when occupying a vessel I was still myself. Now I’m…”

Sam supposes Castiel is gesturing in the pause and finally he turns around to look as Castiel can apparently find no word to finish his sentence. Castiel has no more sense of modesty than of personal space so far as Sam can tell. Sam grew up sharing motel rooms with two other guys, there’s not a lot he hasn’t seen in the way of naked men. It’s stupid to be embarrassed.

Castiel has thrown his arms wide and is regarding himself with a bewildered expression. Sympathy is a better feeling than embarrassment in a lot of ways.

“I don’t really know what to tell you, Cas. I don’t have anything to compare it to, I guess. If you’re talking about the stereotypical guy stuff, I guess you do know. I mean, you watched a porno and drank a liquor store. You wear a suit and have stubble most of the time. It’s mostly just different plumbing and a more rigorous grooming routine as far as I can tell.”

“Oh,” Castiel let his arms fall to his sides and slumped.

“Is it..I mean, do you not like it or something? Being a guy?”

“I just don’t think I feel like a man, Sam.”

Sam patted him on the shoulder. “You feel okay to me.”

Castiel favored him with exactly the frown appropriate to such a lame joke, but Sam knew it was just because Castiel was confused.

“Never mind. Do you maybe want to try out some girl stuff and see if that feels better?”

Castiel tilted his head into its thinking position. “What would you suggest?”

“Uh.” Sam had never put much thought into trying to feel like a woman before. “Underwear, maybe? Maybe shave your legs or something, see how it feels?”

Castiel contemplates this for a while, his expression gone blank in that way that means he’s sort of forgotten he has a face. Then he straightens and the blankness arranges itself into determination. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Let’s? As in let us? As in us? This was more of that asking without asking. Sam hesitated, but really, shopping for women’s underwear with a former angel won’t even be the weirdest thing he’s done this week. It’s not even illegal.

“Okay, you put on some pants and I’m going to go do a little research.”

The research had payed off in a friendly little sex shop with a woman behind the counter who was as completely blasé about two men shopping for lacy undergarments together as one could hope. Sam had left Castiel poking somewhat dejectedly through a rack of suitably feminine garments and stopped off at the drugstore for further supplies.

The underthings, Castiel hadn’t offered to show them to Sam and Sam hadn’t asked, are sitting in a discreet brown paper bag on Castiel’s bed. Castiel is soaking in a tub of hot water holding a very purple can of shaving gel. Sam sits on the toilet attempting to liberate a pink razor from a blister pack. Sam’s involvement with this experiment has somehow gotten far deeper than he is entirely comfortable with.

A hiss of compressed air is followed by Castiel’s announcement, “I don’t think this is different from the shaving cream I’ve been using.”

“It’s lavender scented.” Sam explains. There might be other differences but what they are, Sam has no idea. The razor finally pops free from its packaging and lands in the tub with a plip.

“Hmm.” Castiel fishes the razor out of the water and examines it. “It’s…rounder.”

“It’s supposed to have some kind of lotiony thing built in, I guess? Because ladies have delicate legs or something. More delicate than men’s faces which makes me worry a little.”

“It does smell nice.” This in regard to the foam, which is also purple although less vivid than its container. Castiel awkwardly lifts his leg out of the water and begins to smear the gel onto himself.

Sam turns to look at the bathroom door instead of anywhere near Castiel. Not that Castiel cares. It just feels ever so slightly less the most awkward thing in the history of the universe to look at a door while listening to the rasp of your male friend shaving his legs.

“Hmm,” Castiel says again.

“What?” Sam can’t help but look over at him if he’s going to be making uninformative noises instead of talking. Castiel seems to be petting his own newly depilated leg.

“I hadn’t realized that human body hair provided any warmth. It also feels different. More sensitive.”

Which does sound pretty weird and worthy of confused noises, Sam supposes.

“Beards are like that, but I didn’t think your legs were that hairy. Is it, you know, better?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not unpleasant.”

Dean walks in on them three days later in the room they’d set up with a flat screen and a dvd player. Castiel is wearing a blue dress they’d found at the thrift store which is probably not right for his body shape or skin tone or something and almost certainly not stylish. Castiel had picked it off the rack and Sam thought it was pretty but neither of them knew much of anything about fashion. Castiel is also wearing makeup. Between the two of them, tutorials on the internet, some advice on colors from a mildly concerned but eminently professional woman at the department store and two days practice it’s pretty good. Not expertly applied by any means, but noticeable because it’s on a man, rather than because it’s poorly applied.

Sam is painting Castiel’s nails and they’re watching a romantic comedy.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dean yells. Sam thinks it’s a little sad that they all live in the same fortified bunker and Dean has managed to see Castiel so little over the past few days that this scene comes as a complete surprise to Dean.

“Castiel is exploring his feminine side,” Sam had looked up briefly but he continues with his work on Castiel’s nails. Nonchalant is the best way to derail Dean. It doesn’t always work, but it works more often than any other response.

Dean makes a sort of strangled noise and his mouth flops open a couple of times in an unattractively fishlike way.

“The eyeliner.” Dean gives them a thumbs up, turns around and leaves the room without further comment.

Sam finishes the ring fingernail and goes for another brush full of nail polish to start the pinky.

“You can stop, Sam.”

“Is this because of Dean?”

Castiel puts a lot of stock in what Dean thinks about things. Since Dean thinks a lot of stupid shit, particularly about what is and is not normal, this bothers Sam sometimes. There are probably worse examples of humanity than the brothers Winchester that Castiel could be following, but Sam’s not sure he knows any.

“No. Not really. It just, it’s not making me feel any more like myself.”

“Should I get the nail polish remover or do you want to finish anyway?”

“Finish.” Castiel decides after a bit of head tilting.

“I used to do this for Jess. She said it was nice just having someone pay that much attention her.”

“Does this mean I’m your girlfriend?”

Sam manages to pull the brush away so he didn’t paint the pillow Castiel’s hand was resting on while he laughs.

“Yes, Cas, you’re my girlfriend.” He manages to deliver it dryly, though he breaks into a grin again immediately afterward. Castiel smiles back, one of the more subtle ones but happier than he has been lately.

“Sam?” Castiel interrupts the silence that has fallen while they watch the movie. “Why don’t they just talk to each other? That would be much easier.”

“The movie would be a lot shorter though.”

“People don’t act like that.”

Sam contemplates the screen for a moment. “I dunno Cas, people are pretty dumb. I’ve had dates like that.”

“Thank you for your assistance with this, Sam.” Castiel has somehow picked up that proper etiquette for thanking someone involves not looking at them at all.

“Sure. Did it help at all?”

Castiel holds his hand up to to examine the nails and it strikes Sam as a very feminine gesture. Whether it’s because it is or just because only women usually have any reason to look at their fingernails Sam’s not sure. He’s never had to really think about this stuff before.

“I don’t think I feel like a woman, either. So I suppose that’s useful to know.”

“Maybe you should talk to a woman. Call Charlie or something?”

“Do you think she will be any better at explaining what being a woman is like than you are at explaining what being a man is like?” That this is honest curiosity and not subtle sarcasm sets Sam off laughing again. That this time Castiel only watches with a mildly disapproving frown doesn’t help him stop laughing at all.

“Are you…Is it…” Is this about having a penis, Cas? Sam doesn’t say it out loud, not because it would make Castiel uncomfortable, but just because he’s not sure he could deal with the answer. He settles on, “Do you think you would have been more comfortable with a female vessel?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not so much which genitalia I have as having it at all.”

Which, yes, is about as uncomfortable as Sam had expected asking Castiel about his penis would be.

“You should probably cut yourself some slack about it. Humans usually get like thirteen years to get used to things before the hormones even kick in and even then some of us have trouble with it. It’s okay if you want to think about it for a while and try some stuff out and if you don’t ever really feel like a man, or a woman, then that’s okay too. Welcome to the human race, it’s messy and confusing.”

Sam claps Castiel on the shoulder in what feels like an incredibly forced gesture of ‘see how just like normal this is?’ but he gets that small tired smile out of him again, so he must be doing something right.

“Thank you, Sam.”


End file.
